Description
Marketing strategies implemented by companies to deliver their brand to the consumers. It’s an analysis of the effectiveness of the strategies with respect to impact on consumers, results and on the brand itself. Companies today concentrate on highlighting how the product adds value to a consumer’s life. Today, “Direct to consumers” is the buzz word for marketers. Companies are today following collaborative marketing strategies to leave no stone unturned in an effort to occupy a piece of the consumers shopping basket.
Innovative Marketing Strategies
Marketing Strategy Assignment
Group Members:
Mehul Gala (111) Prashant Joshi (120) Radhika Kadam (121) Chintan Vira (161)
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Table of Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................... 3 Need for Innovation in Marketing .......................................................................... 6 Innovative Marketing Strategies in Use ............................................................... 10 Suggested Marketing Strategies .......................................................................... 18 CASE STUDY: Ghajini ............................................................................................ 22
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Introduction
Traditional Marketing The days of stereotype advertising and marketing gimmicks have passed and the old ways are not necessarily effective. Traditionally companies used the brand ambassador to deliver the brand image supported by hoardings and contests. Till a few years back all marketing strategies revolved around television advertisements. In today’s world the consumer has become more knowledgeable as he has turned into a prosumer, a producer and consumer of information. Today a consumer seeks information rather than just grasping what companies showcase. Buying decisions have now become more complex. Need for Innovation Innovation can be termed as the process of re-writing rules while retaining and creating values thereby paving a way in to the future. There is a need to address this new consumer to deliver value for him. Compelling influence of television ads has reduced drastically. New mediums are now available for the companies as well as the consumers to interact. Internet has played a huge role in the way strategies are formulated in today’s world. Forums, social media, blogs have played a huge role in affecting how a consumer thinks and reacts. Association with a social cause has been the latest phenomenon for companies to portray the CSR aspect of the product/company. Visionary pioneers in the industry are capturing and retaining customers by offering so much more than the product. Project Outline Our project focuses on out of the box marketing strategies implemented by companies to deliver their brand to the consumers. It’s an analysis of the effectiveness of the strategies with respect to impact on consumers, results and on the brand itself. Companies today concentrate on highlighting how the product adds value to a consumer’s life. Today, “Direct to consumers” is the buzz word for marketers. Companies are today following collaborative marketing
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strategies to leave no stone unturned in an effort to occupy a piece of the consumers shopping basket. Case Study Our project also concentrates on the evolving entertainment industry with the changing trends in marketing strategies. Recessionary times highlighted the need for new marketing strategies to save cost and maximize impact. The journey from only trailers and posters to an all out Integrated Marketing Communications strategy has been long but rewarding. New markets have emerged with new consumers. The challenge is not to just use the new avenues of promotion and communication but to use them effectively. Many films have been able to ride the wagon but even more have failed. Case Study includes the success story of innovation used by the movie Ghajini in marketing their film that resulted in desired impact for their offering.
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Traditional Ways of Marketing
Traditionally, Marketing Strategy primarily involved planning for the 4Ps and doing STP i.e. Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. Traditional marketing, unlike New Marketing, is Company-focused and product-based. It intends only to increase the visibility of the Company and its brand. The message conveyed to the customer is Company-controlled and motivated unlike in new marketing, which is Consumer-focused and attuned to consumer's interests. The Company becomes the active participant while the consumer fades into the inactive and passive zone. Marketing plans and strategies finally end in advertising. For it is advertising which exposes the product to the world and places it in a platform for the target customer to view. It gives the product visibility and helps boosts its sales. Advertising, in general, can be classified into two trends: Above-the-line (ATL) and Below-the-line (BTL). ATL covers all the advertising done through media. BTL stands for all the promotions- public relations, sponsorships, merchandising etc. In traditional marketing mostly ATL is practiced. The following media are the ATL modes of advertising: Print Medium: Newspapers, Magazines, Yellow Pages, Posters and Billboards. TV & Radio: All kinds of TV and Radio spots. Other Communications: All kinds of mailers and leaflets. When the world shifts gears and operates in a faster pace, it is advisable for us also to follow its lead and take up the trend. Traditional Marketing, say many market analysts, fails to work in today's world. The brand recall is very minimal as the customer is exposed to a variety of brands. Moreover, as every other brand is as good as its competitor, there is no particular reason for the consumer to opt for a particular brand. That's why today's marketer aims at 360degree marketing - an all round marketing strategy covering all the available modes and aimed at constant brand recall. Hence the need for Inovation is felt.
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Need for Innovation in Marketing
A song in a film uses a popular brand in its lyrics. It runs as part of the film’s promotion on all the channels a month prior to its launch. One week after the film’s release and a declaration of it being a box office super-hit, the brand owner decides to sue the producer for misuse of brand name. It creates media buzz; the brand is alleged to have grown by 12 per cent in the same period! A week later, media announces that there has been an out-of-court settlement and the star who sang the song has become the brand’s official ambassador. The brand used in the film’s lyrics was Emami’s Zandu balm and the movie using its name was Dabaang which turned out to be a big hit. The questions which need to be answered in this case are: Did the film benefit because of this entire buzz? Has the brand benefited from all the exposure - in the song and the media buzz that followed? Irrespective of whether there are accurate answers to these questions, the fact remains that such type of new marketing strategies generate a lot of buzz for the brand, which is exactly one of the objectives, if not the main, of marketers. And thus we can safely assume that it is this buzz which has helped Zandu balm clock sales growth of 12%. This example underscores the importance of Innovative Marketing Strategies. Innovation with movies & TV shows Today viewers are exposed to reality shows filled with brand and film promotions to seed themselves in. While stars appear regularly in shows to promote their upcoming movies, brands have found myriad ways to be present in such shows to reach their audiences. Chocolate is given when someone wins, soft drinks tell people to take a cool break, phones are used by anchors to call friends from the venue, a bank name prominently appears when a winner is given his cheque and anchors speak from laptops with brand names prominently displayed. Aamir Khan is quite celebrated in the advertising and marketing world for his innovative film promotions. For 3 Idiots, he actually toured small towns incognito to get coverage in local media. For Ghajini, he generated interest by providing Ghajini-type haircuts in saloons, mannequins and ushers with similar hairstyles were seen in multiplexes.
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A combination of in-content brand placement and public relations support is being used to grab viewer attention. Media innovation is what it’s called in advertising lingo. Do these work or do they end up being gimmicks? Would the box-office returns of Ghajini and 3 Idiots have been the same in case Aamir Khan didn’t do what he did or did these acts actually bolster the films? Are brands placed in-content actually getting more consumers to buy them? Consumer Attention – A Challenge We, no doubt, live in a very cluttered environment. Getting consumer attention is a challenge. Besides the brand and media overload, consumers today have more cluttered minds — thinking and worrying about many more things. In this context, marketers need to work harder and harder to intrude into their minds. And, further, displace other brands from the consideration set. In this scenario, thinking new ideas — innovations — is perhaps a good thing. And experimenting is the only way. Against this backdrop, the possible strategies for grabbing consumer attention can be: • Bombardment:
Bombardment is one possible strategy. This, of course, needs big bucks. Yet, it doesn’t guarantee attention. Blind spots and apathy occur naturally. Consumers are able to blank out what they don’t want to listen to or retain. And much of the bombardment that happens could be just a waste of money. • Targeted communication with niche media:
Targeting communication in a more focused way is the other option. The challenge remains that in a mass, penetration market like India where scale is the name of the game, this doesn’t generate confidence that niche media vehicles help reach select groups adequately enough and this provides enough width to deliver results.
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Innovative Marketing Strategies:
Not surprisingly, it comes down to do “Innovation” in mass channels to try to get attention. And hence Volkswagen Talking Newspaper ad for its model Vento scores above all. It’s a claasic case of breaking the clutter and registering top of the mind image in the minds of the consumers, in such a competitive market with well entrenched players like Maruti, Hyundai,etc. Challenges in Innovation The challenge remains two-fold:
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Innovation & its connection with brand message and proposition
To do the innovation in a way that ties in with brand message and proposition. Pure salience has limited value as brands occupy slots in consumer minds based on past experience, imagery and relationship. Displacement would be difficult with such advertising. Further, as the media innovations field also gets crowded, they become blind spots. Empirical data show few people, except the most involved, actually go out to open magazine cover gatefolds or notice innovative shapes in print. And fewer people consciously notice brands plugged into video content as there are so many. Unless the styles and looks are distinct as in the new version of Wall Street, impact is likely to be limited.
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Measuring the impact of Innovation:
There is a need to determine new metric of measurement. There may be a case of subliminal impact of many of such brand messages — from the bombardment that takes place by omnipresent brands to the more subtle ones done by placing within content. There could be a case of the unconscious being impacted and that influencing final purchase decisions, especially for the more impulse and low involvement categories. However, there
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exists very little tracking mechanism to determine how much final brand decisions are made on the back of such messaging. This could provide another model on how advertising works — beyond the classic AIDA and advertising cut through systems currently in place. Clearly, the fact that marketers are investing in new innovations in brand messaging and advertising celebrates media innovations indicates an intuitive need to go beyond reach and opportunities-to-see model of advertising. There is a growing recognition that if you don’t make impact, you are lost. Creativity and insight do help — Fevicol remains a brand that has, with single-digit television budgets, succeeded in gaining consumer mind-space. However, in more crowded categories, a different solution is needed. Film brands whose success depends on the opening weekend performance are. Product brands tend to have more time. Controversy-of-the-song kind or just doing things differently is needed to get into the consumer’s mind. However, the time has come to explore such innovations on large scale and measure their impact.
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Innovative Marketing Strategies in Use
Following are few successful innovative marketing strategies used till now: • Exploding billboard:
The remarkable exploding billboard was designed for a courier company. To underscore the importance of sticking to a deadline, the billboard , in a busy part of Auckland, was rigged to explode at a particular time. A countdown was posted, with the note, "This message will selfdestruct in exactly . . ." so that regular passers-by would know when to watch for the big event. In addition, interested people could watch streaming video of the countdown with the resulting explosion online. The billboard garnered lots of media coverage and word-of-mouth buzz around New Zealand, and thousands of people gathered in person to watch the billboard explode. With the online viewers added, it was seen by over a million people. The courier company's motto is "When Deadline Couriers gives you a time, they actually mean it." The billboard cost only $20,000 NZD to produce, which is relatively cost-effective for the courier company's only marketing method.
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Giant Athletes "Dream Big" to Promote Football:
Giant football players greet commuters at a Zurich train station at 17 meters high; they're there to represent "dreaming big" in the UEFA EURO tournament in 2008. These giant statues are, despite their height, life-like representations of 11 football players from nine different countries. Not only are they gigantic, but they cheer for each other twice a day. More than 50 people worked for over a year to create this striking and innovative piece to promote the tournament. The heads of each player are three meters high, and the players combined weigh seven tons. • Interactive Ads for the Zoo Unleash Your Wild Side: A series of fun and interactive ads encourage people around San Francisco to unleash their wild sides. To promote the San Francisco Zoo, these bus shelter ads were placed around the city. The ads featured such animal features as wings, antennae and horns, made human-sized. The ads' text asks people to stand in front of the ads. When they do, people suddenly have wings, antennae and horns themselves!
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Big is better for Organic Carrots: Owen Jones & Partners, in Portland, Oregon, installed six gigantic carrots around trees to promote market. a The local farmer's also
agency
attached ads to car antennas, to approximate skewers.
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Cling Film Sticks to Freshness: This creative ad installation is for Toppits Cling Film. It is meant to visually represent the toughness and stickiness of the cling the film. cleaner-
Additionally, looking brick
underneath
represents the way the cling film keeps what it covers fresh.
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Subway Station Transformed into Grocery Store: This innovative ads
installation in a South Korean subway station is for, unsurprisingly, a
grocery store. Subway riders walk around the station's pillars and walls which have been made to look and feel like browsing in a grocery store. • Elevator Simulates Oreo Being Dunked: This pseudo-interactive ad uses an elevator to illustrate the act of dunking an Oreo into a glass of milk. The bottom piece, the glass of milk, remains on the ground. The elevator, displaying an image of an Oreo, appears to dunk the cookie into the milk as it rises and descends.
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Innovative use of Semi-Trucks for advertisements:
Companies and agencies have used innovative advertising ideas on the sides of trucks. Following are two examples of such ideas.
Campaign Pringles ad on Semi Truck
Campaign Kit-Kat ad on Semi Truck
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Innovative Marketing using goodies and promo tools: In India famous reality show “Kya aap panchvi paas se tez hain” used "paanchvi paas" promo tools for marketing the show. Here 2 glasses were stuck on to the bonnet and back of parked car by someone at a crossing. On taking them off one can find the magnet which says "Magnet sticks to Iron – a Class V question – SRK Saying Paanchvi Paas".
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Innovative branding on roof top: Companies like Pepsi and Nescafe has started using building roof for branding. This kind of strategy certainly gives quick attention to audience who are passing that particular street and also generates brand recall for that matter as such.
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Innovative
ambient
marketing
in men’s restrooms: An Indian gaming portal had launched this amazing ambient ad. They see to play on the competitive streak inherent in every gamer. They created 4 levels in a men's restroom. If you are a true gamer, you have to beat level 4.
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Innovative marketing using social networking sites:
Lacoste on Facebook
Lacoste's Facebook page is probably the best Flash-based product showcase available on Facebook. The fragrance company has created several apps that display its products in unusual and creative ways, going beyond Facebook’s default photo and video galleries. Click the “Momentum” tab and you see a kaleidoscopic sequence of Lacoste products set to music. You can choose different songs, which in turn display different sets of products. Click the “Perfumes” tab, and you can scroll through different fragrances matched with color-coded model shots in the background. It looks quite a bit like a print advertising spread, but with more interaction. Each of these tabs links back to product landing pages on Lacoste.com. The “Lacoste Red!” tab launches a photo collage with rollover graphics with pictures of models that include links to the online store. This is a very simple, yet elegant, approach to displaying products on Facebook. Small but essential details like page composition and color choice make for an impressive catalog experience.
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Innovative marketing using print media:
Volkswagen audio ad in TOI
The Volkswagen Vento audio advertisement in the Indian
newspapers was the biggest ad buzz this week which reached millions of Indians across major cities. As readers of Hindu and The Times of India newspaper in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and Chennai lifted their daily newspaper a few days back, they were newspaper started speaking about the Volkswagen Vento! This ad was much like the audio greeting cards, which you open an audio message starts playing. People claim that it’s the first ever advertising campaign of this type in the world, at such a scale to reach millions of newspaper readers. The Economic Times says the talking advertisement was made possible by a light-sensitive device weighing just a few grams and pasted on the final page of the paper’s special 10-page section. It was carried in some 2.2 million copies. Lutz Kothe, head of marketing at Volkswagen India, credited his 14-year-old niece for the idea to create this iPod-sized device embedded with a chip, a speaker and batteries to last for 140 minutes. Made at a Volkswagen plant in China, about 2.5 million of these devices were distributed with The Times of India and The Hindu. surprised as their
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Suggested Marketing Strategies
Marketers today are searching for new avenues to catch the attention of the target audience. They are going beyond the traditional mediums to do so. Some of the suggested strategies which the companies could use are as follows: Entry Stamps Companies in the hard drinks category can use their logos as stamps at discos and pubs where there a significant amount of their target audience is present. This ensures that their brand logo is seen at desired places. Brand specific counters At places which serve a variety of brands, a company can setup its own counter within the place which can attract crowd, increase business and visibility for the brand. The image is an example whereby an alcohol brand can have its own counter in a pub to attract people. Mirror advertising Advertisements at the entrance of the toilet and near the flush are widely used. The most widely used and looked at in any washroom is the mirror. Marketers can use this space to seek the attention of its target audience.
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Ambient Marketing Innovation Media analyst predict that ambient media is the future for all companies. It attracts huge attention when placed at the right location. Indian Railways and public transport can be used as a medium to promote movies. Example – Anjaana Anjaani can be promoted as given in the posters below:
Inside Best bus
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Flash Mobs A flash mob (or flash mob) is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then disperse.] The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails. The term is generally not applied to events organized by public relations firms, protests, and publicity stunts. It is used in US & Europe to promote events, movies and other entertainment avenues. A flash mob at a place with good footfalls can be used to catch the audience by surprise and can hold attention for a significant amount of time.
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Quizzes using tieups Marketers can tie up with other companies where there is a strong number of target audience visiting. It can play a major role in enhancing the marketing promotions used by a company. For Example, The movie, Anjaana Anjaani can use quizzes which can be filled through a Café Coffee Day outlet
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CASE STUDY: Ghajini
Ghajini is a 2008 Bollywood film directed by A. R. Murugadoss and produced under Geetha Arts. It is a remake of the Tamil film with the same name, which was also directed by Murugadoss. The plot of Ghajini is based on the Hollywood film Memento, written and directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Aamir Khan and Asin in the lead roles Aamir Khan spent a year at the gym, continuously training with his personal trainer for the role. The movie is an action-thriller, with strong romantic elements, that explores the life of a rich businessman who suffers from anterograde amnesia (short term memory loss) following a violent encounter in which his love interest, model Kalpana, was killed. He tries to avenge the killing with the aid of Polaroid Instant camera photographs and permanent tattoos on his body. The Aamir Khan starrer Ghajini had created waves at the box office by raking in Rs 90 crore worldwide on the first weekend of its release. But much before that, the film had already created waves in the world of marketing by setting new standards for the industry. Ghajini has been marketed as ‘India’s first event film’, one that has the potential to become a successful business venture rather than just the box office success of the movie. Apart from the success of Ghajini, the movie was able to create much hype in the corporate world through its well tuned and finely coordinated marketing campaign pre and post movie release. The movie had released within the country with 1,400 prints. Reliance BIG Pictures had released 213 prints overseas inorder to have maximum revenue in initial weeks of curiosity. To promote a movie various means or modes of communications were used. The marketing or promotions of a movie start right from the day of its first day of shooting to even after the movie was released.
Before 25th December
• Muhurat: The first day of shooting i.e. Muhurat, is done on a day which the film crew
feels is auspicious. On the muhurat itself, many a times many stars are called in that are not going to be featured in the movie. And then at right moment the shooting for the movie begins. Normally only a single scene is only recorded on that day. Media people
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are specially called in to create awareness about the film. The same was also done for Ghajini.
• First Look: Ghajini's marketing started way back from March 20th, 2008 when he came
out on the premier of RACE with his new bald look. It actually gave the perfect sneak peek at the two looks of Aamir in the movie. It was the first time that the entire world saw Aamir dawning the bald look which soon became famous.
• Music release: Just like muhurats, music release is also an
important tool for promoting hindi movies. In hindi movies, music forms an important part of the movie. The music released date for Ghajini was November 22, 2008. The music was recorded at Panchathan Record Inn. The music company with which Ghajini associated itself was T-Series. The music director of the movie was A.R. Rahman which also created a lot of hype, as he is one of the best in the music industry. And finally the lyrics for the various songs were given by Prasoon Joshi. In Bollywood, it is said that, if the music of the movie is a hit with the audience then the movie is bound to be hit. So releasing the music in a proper manner is important for a movie to be successful.
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Newspapers: In November, this photo shot across almost all leading dailies and Aamir without even showing his face and his 8 packs instantly became the talk of the town. After this the almost every week there was some news about the movie in the newspaper. It would either be about the various promotion strategies being used by Aamir, or the release dates of the music, movie. Even interviews of the cast and crew of the movie started coming in the newspapers.
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• The 8 pack promotion: Cut back to october 2007 and remember SRK and the ho-hallah
around his 6 pack abs. It was only around that time that Aamir silently started working on his own, and just to make it better, he added a pair and made it eight pack abs. The fact that the man now had 8 pack abs and a fantastic body, he decided to show the world how he got it. So to do this he came up with the videos 'Making of Aamir's 8 pack' on all news and entertainment channels. He even went a step ahead and called a press conference to introduce his trainer and explain his diet chart.
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Television appearances: Soon the promos and the trailers of the movie were aired on all the TV channels. With the TV channels filled with Ghajini promos, Aamir went into
overdrive with his interviews, which came in by the day on every news and entertainment channel. He even made some guest appearences on reality shows.
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Promotion at Theaters: Aamir has asked the staff in PVR multiplexes to don the Aamir hair cut in Ghajini. After Ghajini was released, staff at PVR multiplexes were spotted sporting Aamir Khan’s buzz cut. This move also turned out to be as Ambush Marketing, because Shah Rukh Khan’s movie Rab neBana di JodI also released in the same week.
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Co Branding: Ghajini utilized co-branding to its advantage. It collabrated with many different brands for the marketing of the movie. The vairous brand with which it got associated are mentioned below:
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o Tata Sky: Tata Sky started running Ghajini “specials” complete with behind-thescenes stories of the upcoming film. Even Asin was made the brand ambassador of Tata Sky. o Samsung launched special Ghajini edition mobile phones of L700 and M200 models. These phones were launched along with the release of the movie. The special feature about these phones was that they were pre-loaded with Ghajini movie songs, ringtones and wallpapers. o Van Heusen: Van Huesen launched Ghajini's apparels in their stores all across India and is backing it with in-store campaigns and giant posters of Khan dressed in formal attire. Van Heusen also organized a fashion show wherein models along with Aamir sported the Ghajini look. Even Aamir khan himself walked on the ramp for the fashion show. o Tata Indicom: Tata Indicom started with a outbound dialer service with Khan's pre-recorded voice. In this, some users of Tata Indicom would get a call where Aamir Khan would ask questions like ‘Are you Ghajini?’, ‘Do you know where Ghajini?’ and ‘The movie is releasing on 25th December, so be there to find out the truth.’
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Viral SMS campaign: Viral Smses were sent to many people to promote the movie and create a buzz and curiosity about the movie. People received sms on their mobile which goes “Someone killed Aamir’s girlfriend and he lost his memory. Then he tries to find out the killer. Suspense… Aamir himself is the killer. Now enjoy Ghajini!”
• Digital Promotion: Ghajini is one big thing among hindi movie freaks and the producers
and a digital marketing company for the first time in India had come up with such kind of plan. With few user-involving online promoting tools and websites Ghajini makers had reaped the benefits of web and internet. The trick was to engage official website – www.rememberghajini.com to create maximum visibility for the movie. However in addition to the extraordinary website there were the two
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viral applications cum websites that gripped the user and gave him an experience like the movie, over the Internet. The creators of Ghajini and Hungama took this initiative to attract the online audience to the theatres. Exclusive videos of Aamir Khan had been shot and used for the so called viral application www.findghajini.com. In this application, the user plays the lead role of movie which is played by actor Aamir Khan and tries to find Ghajini through the clues provided. After the user finds a clue, he/ she is given a hint about where one might find the next one. After one finds all the clues, the user needs to dial a phone number on which one can hear Aamir Khan talking to them. In other viral app cum website www.wallofsuspects.com users can upload their own photograph or that of their friends, much like the Aamir Khan’s wall of suspects in the film. Once they have done so, they receive a code which is required to view the entire wall of suspects. The websites & tools are brought via Hungama, an aggregator, developer and publisher of Indian entertainment content. The makers of Ghajini with Hangama are capitalizing the potential of the web along with Hungama to create maximum visibility for the film. • They also launched a collectible small statue based on Aamir Khan’s look in Ghajini, especially the tattoos and eight packs. The makers of Ghajini, Geetha Arts, claim that Aamir Khan’s statue is exquisitely carved and is a premium collectible. • UTV owned Indiagames had also developed five mobile based games on Ghajini which was a huge success.
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Paid previews were viewed as another marketing strategy by film makers since they helped in generating a certain amount of buzz around the film. On December 23, 2008, the film had 300 paid previews with the ticket prices ranging between Rs. 100 and Rs. 500.
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Aamir also kept up the internet marketing of Ghajini, with his blog and the new Ghajini site, which invites journalists to register on the site, upload their photos, and receive personal notes from him.
Final Week controversy In the final week, just two days before the release of the movie a court notice came which stated 'Ghajini Release Stayed'. This created a lot of tension among the masses. Naturally, this became breaking news with minute to minute tracking on the latest updates. But the matter was solved and the movie released on the next day when it was scheduled to release. After 25th December • Aamir turns barber: While many star struck men and boys visited salons to get the perfect 'Ghajini' cut, two lucky fans got their hair buzzed by Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan himself at a market in the capital, New Delhi. 'Quite a lot of people are getting this 'Ghajini' haircut from various places, so I thought I will give the cut to some of my fans myself. I felt very light when I got it done - there was no need to comb my hair after the bath,' said Aamir, who gave hair cut at Bengali Market in central Delhi as part of his promotional activities for 'Ghajini'. Aamir gave the hair cut to Shamshir, a hairstylist, and Shivek, a grade five student in the presence of a huge crowd.
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Television: After the success of the movie, the lead pair of the movie came on TIMES NOW. In an exclusive interview with the Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami actors Aamir Khan and Asin talked about their film Ghajini and the various reasons that they think because of which it was a success. They even answered various questions that were asked by the viewers of the show.
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Asin unveils Salman Khan’s Ghajini paintings: Salman Khan was so impressed by Ghajini that he made paintings of Amir Khan’s Ghajini look and they were unveiled by Asin at Inox multiplex on December 26, 2008. Amir Khan and Salman Khan are known to be good friends and this painting again proved the same.
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Aamir Khan at Radio Mirchi: Aamir Khan has been promoting Ghajini like never before and media shy Aamir Khan has turned into an extremely media friendly Aamir Khan. Ghajini has already set all box office records on fire with its huge success and turning out to be the most successful movie of 2008 and likely to become the highest box office earner in Bollywood history. But this has not stopped Aamir Khan and he is going on promoting Ghajini in every measure he can even after the movie’s release and subsequent huge success. He turned out at Radio Mirchi on December 29, 2008 which is one of the most popular FM radio stations in India and answered to callers there.
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Aamir and Asin on Cine Blitz cover: Aamir Khan and Asin Thottumkal appeared on the cover of Cine Blitz movie magazine in that month. The couple were looking great in the magazine cover. Aamir and Asin seem to be appearing in everything related to Bollywood after the huge success of Ghajini.
Success Parties: Like almost all the movies, even Ghajini had its success party. But the only major difference being that Ghajini celebrated its success parties on different occasions. 1. Ghajini success party photos
Ghajini had been a huge success at the box office and the crew of Ghajini gave a party to celebrate the success of the movie on 31st December. Aamir Khan cut the cake at the party while the Asin, Jiah and the director A R Murugadoss were also present. 2. Ghajini success party on crossing Rs. 200 crores
Ghajini celebrated its second success party after crossing Rs. 200 crores worldwide gross. Aamir Khan came to the success party for a day though he was busy in the shooting of his next movie Rajkumar Hirani’s 3 Idiots. 3 Idiots would be a comedy and Aamir would be playing a college student in this movie directed by Hirani of Munnabhai fame. On the occassion, Ghajini heroines Asin Thottumkal and Jiah Khan were also present. The movie’s villain Pradeep Rawat who played the character of Ghajini in the movie and the director A R Murugadoss were also present at the party.
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Ghajini after making 200 crores, the producer of the movie Madhu Mantena decided to show his gratitude to Aamir by presenting him a golden statue of Aamir. This statue shows Aamir’s Ghajini look and is made of solid gold. The statue might have cost Madhu about 70 - 80 lakhs though he was not ready to tell the amount spent in the statue. The statue was made similar to the Oscar award statue and also had Aamir’s eight pack Ghajini abs in it. The director A R Murugadoss was also gifted a statue by the producer though it was not of pure gold like Aamir’s.
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Marketing Outcome According to a multiplex official, "The number of paid previews is so large that it is as good as a release. Earlier, we used to have three shows a day when a film released, now each cinema is having three paid previews a day prior to the release!" Earlier Hindi films like “Dostana and Singh is King” had paid previews and collected Rs. 7.5 million and Rs. 5 million respectively. The promotional strategies adopted by the film makers resulted in generating such hype that the film showed whopping results. In contrast to the estimates made by experts that Rs. 10 million would be collected from the paid previews, the film grossed Rs. 70 million from December 23, 2008 to December 24, 2008. The collections, as of 31st December, were Rs 140 crores, the money Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi earned in 3 weeks, Ghajini took a week to earn." Thus showing the success of the movie. Ghajini’s tie up with an apparel brand, toy stores, cinema halls and a mobile phone company and more than anything Aamir not just giving the occasional interview leading up to the release, he seemed to have taken the marketing of the film as seriously as his role in the film. The first phase of Ghajini’s marketing life cycle was quite active and promising & the second phase was made with a budget of around 50 Crore and with marketing expenses of about 14 Crore. Aamir’s “buzz cut” attracted 18 hours of television coverage, translating into publicity worth Rs 129.6 lakhs. Further TV news channels showed 31 hours of coverage translating into Rs. 423 lakhs worth of publicity. Aamir Khan, who was present at the trial run of the movie at a preview theatre in Mumbai Wednesday, reportedly said that “Ghajini” has created a record by becoming the first Bollywood movie in recent times for which the tickets had been sold in advance for all five days of the opening week across the country.
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According to trade reports, in view of the unprecedented audience expectation for the film, the multiplexes were asking the distributors to increase the number of prints,which clearly depicts the impact of marketing mania created on the audience. End Result The success of the film was widely attributed to the aggressive promotional strategies adopted by the film makers in conjunction with the lead actor of the film, Aamir Khan, who played a vital role in the promotion of the film. Also what’s noteworthy is the fact that Internet Marketing for Ghajini has been a very significant chunk of the overall marketing strategy. “Hungama” is the brain behind the Internet Marketing for Ghajini. There is nothing in terms of marketing initiatives that have not been covered for Ghajini, be it the teaser trailers, photos of his new looks, and, of course, internet marketing. According to “Box Office Mojo” Ghajini's box-office totals were about Rs.280 crores ($54,316,564 USD) worldwide as of 29th of January 2009 with a total run of 37 days/ 5.3 weeks, making it Bollywood's highest grossing movie of all time. Thus given the effort that went into promoting Ghajini with the innovative marketing strategies that it adopted, the results are there for all to see which has set a new trend & also will act as a benchmark for many upcoming productions to keep up with it.
doc_578607083.pdf
Marketing strategies implemented by companies to deliver their brand to the consumers. It’s an analysis of the effectiveness of the strategies with respect to impact on consumers, results and on the brand itself. Companies today concentrate on highlighting how the product adds value to a consumer’s life. Today, “Direct to consumers” is the buzz word for marketers. Companies are today following collaborative marketing strategies to leave no stone unturned in an effort to occupy a piece of the consumers shopping basket.
Innovative Marketing Strategies
Marketing Strategy Assignment
Group Members:
Mehul Gala (111) Prashant Joshi (120) Radhika Kadam (121) Chintan Vira (161)
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Table of Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................... 3 Need for Innovation in Marketing .......................................................................... 6 Innovative Marketing Strategies in Use ............................................................... 10 Suggested Marketing Strategies .......................................................................... 18 CASE STUDY: Ghajini ............................................................................................ 22
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Introduction
Traditional Marketing The days of stereotype advertising and marketing gimmicks have passed and the old ways are not necessarily effective. Traditionally companies used the brand ambassador to deliver the brand image supported by hoardings and contests. Till a few years back all marketing strategies revolved around television advertisements. In today’s world the consumer has become more knowledgeable as he has turned into a prosumer, a producer and consumer of information. Today a consumer seeks information rather than just grasping what companies showcase. Buying decisions have now become more complex. Need for Innovation Innovation can be termed as the process of re-writing rules while retaining and creating values thereby paving a way in to the future. There is a need to address this new consumer to deliver value for him. Compelling influence of television ads has reduced drastically. New mediums are now available for the companies as well as the consumers to interact. Internet has played a huge role in the way strategies are formulated in today’s world. Forums, social media, blogs have played a huge role in affecting how a consumer thinks and reacts. Association with a social cause has been the latest phenomenon for companies to portray the CSR aspect of the product/company. Visionary pioneers in the industry are capturing and retaining customers by offering so much more than the product. Project Outline Our project focuses on out of the box marketing strategies implemented by companies to deliver their brand to the consumers. It’s an analysis of the effectiveness of the strategies with respect to impact on consumers, results and on the brand itself. Companies today concentrate on highlighting how the product adds value to a consumer’s life. Today, “Direct to consumers” is the buzz word for marketers. Companies are today following collaborative marketing
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strategies to leave no stone unturned in an effort to occupy a piece of the consumers shopping basket. Case Study Our project also concentrates on the evolving entertainment industry with the changing trends in marketing strategies. Recessionary times highlighted the need for new marketing strategies to save cost and maximize impact. The journey from only trailers and posters to an all out Integrated Marketing Communications strategy has been long but rewarding. New markets have emerged with new consumers. The challenge is not to just use the new avenues of promotion and communication but to use them effectively. Many films have been able to ride the wagon but even more have failed. Case Study includes the success story of innovation used by the movie Ghajini in marketing their film that resulted in desired impact for their offering.
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Traditional Ways of Marketing
Traditionally, Marketing Strategy primarily involved planning for the 4Ps and doing STP i.e. Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. Traditional marketing, unlike New Marketing, is Company-focused and product-based. It intends only to increase the visibility of the Company and its brand. The message conveyed to the customer is Company-controlled and motivated unlike in new marketing, which is Consumer-focused and attuned to consumer's interests. The Company becomes the active participant while the consumer fades into the inactive and passive zone. Marketing plans and strategies finally end in advertising. For it is advertising which exposes the product to the world and places it in a platform for the target customer to view. It gives the product visibility and helps boosts its sales. Advertising, in general, can be classified into two trends: Above-the-line (ATL) and Below-the-line (BTL). ATL covers all the advertising done through media. BTL stands for all the promotions- public relations, sponsorships, merchandising etc. In traditional marketing mostly ATL is practiced. The following media are the ATL modes of advertising: Print Medium: Newspapers, Magazines, Yellow Pages, Posters and Billboards. TV & Radio: All kinds of TV and Radio spots. Other Communications: All kinds of mailers and leaflets. When the world shifts gears and operates in a faster pace, it is advisable for us also to follow its lead and take up the trend. Traditional Marketing, say many market analysts, fails to work in today's world. The brand recall is very minimal as the customer is exposed to a variety of brands. Moreover, as every other brand is as good as its competitor, there is no particular reason for the consumer to opt for a particular brand. That's why today's marketer aims at 360degree marketing - an all round marketing strategy covering all the available modes and aimed at constant brand recall. Hence the need for Inovation is felt.
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Need for Innovation in Marketing
A song in a film uses a popular brand in its lyrics. It runs as part of the film’s promotion on all the channels a month prior to its launch. One week after the film’s release and a declaration of it being a box office super-hit, the brand owner decides to sue the producer for misuse of brand name. It creates media buzz; the brand is alleged to have grown by 12 per cent in the same period! A week later, media announces that there has been an out-of-court settlement and the star who sang the song has become the brand’s official ambassador. The brand used in the film’s lyrics was Emami’s Zandu balm and the movie using its name was Dabaang which turned out to be a big hit. The questions which need to be answered in this case are: Did the film benefit because of this entire buzz? Has the brand benefited from all the exposure - in the song and the media buzz that followed? Irrespective of whether there are accurate answers to these questions, the fact remains that such type of new marketing strategies generate a lot of buzz for the brand, which is exactly one of the objectives, if not the main, of marketers. And thus we can safely assume that it is this buzz which has helped Zandu balm clock sales growth of 12%. This example underscores the importance of Innovative Marketing Strategies. Innovation with movies & TV shows Today viewers are exposed to reality shows filled with brand and film promotions to seed themselves in. While stars appear regularly in shows to promote their upcoming movies, brands have found myriad ways to be present in such shows to reach their audiences. Chocolate is given when someone wins, soft drinks tell people to take a cool break, phones are used by anchors to call friends from the venue, a bank name prominently appears when a winner is given his cheque and anchors speak from laptops with brand names prominently displayed. Aamir Khan is quite celebrated in the advertising and marketing world for his innovative film promotions. For 3 Idiots, he actually toured small towns incognito to get coverage in local media. For Ghajini, he generated interest by providing Ghajini-type haircuts in saloons, mannequins and ushers with similar hairstyles were seen in multiplexes.
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A combination of in-content brand placement and public relations support is being used to grab viewer attention. Media innovation is what it’s called in advertising lingo. Do these work or do they end up being gimmicks? Would the box-office returns of Ghajini and 3 Idiots have been the same in case Aamir Khan didn’t do what he did or did these acts actually bolster the films? Are brands placed in-content actually getting more consumers to buy them? Consumer Attention – A Challenge We, no doubt, live in a very cluttered environment. Getting consumer attention is a challenge. Besides the brand and media overload, consumers today have more cluttered minds — thinking and worrying about many more things. In this context, marketers need to work harder and harder to intrude into their minds. And, further, displace other brands from the consideration set. In this scenario, thinking new ideas — innovations — is perhaps a good thing. And experimenting is the only way. Against this backdrop, the possible strategies for grabbing consumer attention can be: • Bombardment:
Bombardment is one possible strategy. This, of course, needs big bucks. Yet, it doesn’t guarantee attention. Blind spots and apathy occur naturally. Consumers are able to blank out what they don’t want to listen to or retain. And much of the bombardment that happens could be just a waste of money. • Targeted communication with niche media:
Targeting communication in a more focused way is the other option. The challenge remains that in a mass, penetration market like India where scale is the name of the game, this doesn’t generate confidence that niche media vehicles help reach select groups adequately enough and this provides enough width to deliver results.
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Innovative Marketing Strategies:
Not surprisingly, it comes down to do “Innovation” in mass channels to try to get attention. And hence Volkswagen Talking Newspaper ad for its model Vento scores above all. It’s a claasic case of breaking the clutter and registering top of the mind image in the minds of the consumers, in such a competitive market with well entrenched players like Maruti, Hyundai,etc. Challenges in Innovation The challenge remains two-fold:
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Innovation & its connection with brand message and proposition
To do the innovation in a way that ties in with brand message and proposition. Pure salience has limited value as brands occupy slots in consumer minds based on past experience, imagery and relationship. Displacement would be difficult with such advertising. Further, as the media innovations field also gets crowded, they become blind spots. Empirical data show few people, except the most involved, actually go out to open magazine cover gatefolds or notice innovative shapes in print. And fewer people consciously notice brands plugged into video content as there are so many. Unless the styles and looks are distinct as in the new version of Wall Street, impact is likely to be limited.
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Measuring the impact of Innovation:
There is a need to determine new metric of measurement. There may be a case of subliminal impact of many of such brand messages — from the bombardment that takes place by omnipresent brands to the more subtle ones done by placing within content. There could be a case of the unconscious being impacted and that influencing final purchase decisions, especially for the more impulse and low involvement categories. However, there
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exists very little tracking mechanism to determine how much final brand decisions are made on the back of such messaging. This could provide another model on how advertising works — beyond the classic AIDA and advertising cut through systems currently in place. Clearly, the fact that marketers are investing in new innovations in brand messaging and advertising celebrates media innovations indicates an intuitive need to go beyond reach and opportunities-to-see model of advertising. There is a growing recognition that if you don’t make impact, you are lost. Creativity and insight do help — Fevicol remains a brand that has, with single-digit television budgets, succeeded in gaining consumer mind-space. However, in more crowded categories, a different solution is needed. Film brands whose success depends on the opening weekend performance are. Product brands tend to have more time. Controversy-of-the-song kind or just doing things differently is needed to get into the consumer’s mind. However, the time has come to explore such innovations on large scale and measure their impact.
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Innovative Marketing Strategies in Use
Following are few successful innovative marketing strategies used till now: • Exploding billboard:
The remarkable exploding billboard was designed for a courier company. To underscore the importance of sticking to a deadline, the billboard , in a busy part of Auckland, was rigged to explode at a particular time. A countdown was posted, with the note, "This message will selfdestruct in exactly . . ." so that regular passers-by would know when to watch for the big event. In addition, interested people could watch streaming video of the countdown with the resulting explosion online. The billboard garnered lots of media coverage and word-of-mouth buzz around New Zealand, and thousands of people gathered in person to watch the billboard explode. With the online viewers added, it was seen by over a million people. The courier company's motto is "When Deadline Couriers gives you a time, they actually mean it." The billboard cost only $20,000 NZD to produce, which is relatively cost-effective for the courier company's only marketing method.
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•
Giant Athletes "Dream Big" to Promote Football:
Giant football players greet commuters at a Zurich train station at 17 meters high; they're there to represent "dreaming big" in the UEFA EURO tournament in 2008. These giant statues are, despite their height, life-like representations of 11 football players from nine different countries. Not only are they gigantic, but they cheer for each other twice a day. More than 50 people worked for over a year to create this striking and innovative piece to promote the tournament. The heads of each player are three meters high, and the players combined weigh seven tons. • Interactive Ads for the Zoo Unleash Your Wild Side: A series of fun and interactive ads encourage people around San Francisco to unleash their wild sides. To promote the San Francisco Zoo, these bus shelter ads were placed around the city. The ads featured such animal features as wings, antennae and horns, made human-sized. The ads' text asks people to stand in front of the ads. When they do, people suddenly have wings, antennae and horns themselves!
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•
Big is better for Organic Carrots: Owen Jones & Partners, in Portland, Oregon, installed six gigantic carrots around trees to promote market. a The local farmer's also
agency
attached ads to car antennas, to approximate skewers.
•
Cling Film Sticks to Freshness: This creative ad installation is for Toppits Cling Film. It is meant to visually represent the toughness and stickiness of the cling the film. cleaner-
Additionally, looking brick
underneath
represents the way the cling film keeps what it covers fresh.
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•
Subway Station Transformed into Grocery Store: This innovative ads
installation in a South Korean subway station is for, unsurprisingly, a
grocery store. Subway riders walk around the station's pillars and walls which have been made to look and feel like browsing in a grocery store. • Elevator Simulates Oreo Being Dunked: This pseudo-interactive ad uses an elevator to illustrate the act of dunking an Oreo into a glass of milk. The bottom piece, the glass of milk, remains on the ground. The elevator, displaying an image of an Oreo, appears to dunk the cookie into the milk as it rises and descends.
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•
Innovative use of Semi-Trucks for advertisements:
Companies and agencies have used innovative advertising ideas on the sides of trucks. Following are two examples of such ideas.
Campaign Pringles ad on Semi Truck
Campaign Kit-Kat ad on Semi Truck
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•
Innovative Marketing using goodies and promo tools: In India famous reality show “Kya aap panchvi paas se tez hain” used "paanchvi paas" promo tools for marketing the show. Here 2 glasses were stuck on to the bonnet and back of parked car by someone at a crossing. On taking them off one can find the magnet which says "Magnet sticks to Iron – a Class V question – SRK Saying Paanchvi Paas".
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Innovative branding on roof top: Companies like Pepsi and Nescafe has started using building roof for branding. This kind of strategy certainly gives quick attention to audience who are passing that particular street and also generates brand recall for that matter as such.
•
Innovative
ambient
marketing
in men’s restrooms: An Indian gaming portal had launched this amazing ambient ad. They see to play on the competitive streak inherent in every gamer. They created 4 levels in a men's restroom. If you are a true gamer, you have to beat level 4.
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Innovative marketing using social networking sites:
Lacoste on Facebook
Lacoste's Facebook page is probably the best Flash-based product showcase available on Facebook. The fragrance company has created several apps that display its products in unusual and creative ways, going beyond Facebook’s default photo and video galleries. Click the “Momentum” tab and you see a kaleidoscopic sequence of Lacoste products set to music. You can choose different songs, which in turn display different sets of products. Click the “Perfumes” tab, and you can scroll through different fragrances matched with color-coded model shots in the background. It looks quite a bit like a print advertising spread, but with more interaction. Each of these tabs links back to product landing pages on Lacoste.com. The “Lacoste Red!” tab launches a photo collage with rollover graphics with pictures of models that include links to the online store. This is a very simple, yet elegant, approach to displaying products on Facebook. Small but essential details like page composition and color choice make for an impressive catalog experience.
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Innovative marketing using print media:
Volkswagen audio ad in TOI
The Volkswagen Vento audio advertisement in the Indian
newspapers was the biggest ad buzz this week which reached millions of Indians across major cities. As readers of Hindu and The Times of India newspaper in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and Chennai lifted their daily newspaper a few days back, they were newspaper started speaking about the Volkswagen Vento! This ad was much like the audio greeting cards, which you open an audio message starts playing. People claim that it’s the first ever advertising campaign of this type in the world, at such a scale to reach millions of newspaper readers. The Economic Times says the talking advertisement was made possible by a light-sensitive device weighing just a few grams and pasted on the final page of the paper’s special 10-page section. It was carried in some 2.2 million copies. Lutz Kothe, head of marketing at Volkswagen India, credited his 14-year-old niece for the idea to create this iPod-sized device embedded with a chip, a speaker and batteries to last for 140 minutes. Made at a Volkswagen plant in China, about 2.5 million of these devices were distributed with The Times of India and The Hindu. surprised as their
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Suggested Marketing Strategies
Marketers today are searching for new avenues to catch the attention of the target audience. They are going beyond the traditional mediums to do so. Some of the suggested strategies which the companies could use are as follows: Entry Stamps Companies in the hard drinks category can use their logos as stamps at discos and pubs where there a significant amount of their target audience is present. This ensures that their brand logo is seen at desired places. Brand specific counters At places which serve a variety of brands, a company can setup its own counter within the place which can attract crowd, increase business and visibility for the brand. The image is an example whereby an alcohol brand can have its own counter in a pub to attract people. Mirror advertising Advertisements at the entrance of the toilet and near the flush are widely used. The most widely used and looked at in any washroom is the mirror. Marketers can use this space to seek the attention of its target audience.
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Ambient Marketing Innovation Media analyst predict that ambient media is the future for all companies. It attracts huge attention when placed at the right location. Indian Railways and public transport can be used as a medium to promote movies. Example – Anjaana Anjaani can be promoted as given in the posters below:
Inside Best bus
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Flash Mobs A flash mob (or flash mob) is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then disperse.] The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails. The term is generally not applied to events organized by public relations firms, protests, and publicity stunts. It is used in US & Europe to promote events, movies and other entertainment avenues. A flash mob at a place with good footfalls can be used to catch the audience by surprise and can hold attention for a significant amount of time.
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Quizzes using tieups Marketers can tie up with other companies where there is a strong number of target audience visiting. It can play a major role in enhancing the marketing promotions used by a company. For Example, The movie, Anjaana Anjaani can use quizzes which can be filled through a Café Coffee Day outlet
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CASE STUDY: Ghajini
Ghajini is a 2008 Bollywood film directed by A. R. Murugadoss and produced under Geetha Arts. It is a remake of the Tamil film with the same name, which was also directed by Murugadoss. The plot of Ghajini is based on the Hollywood film Memento, written and directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Aamir Khan and Asin in the lead roles Aamir Khan spent a year at the gym, continuously training with his personal trainer for the role. The movie is an action-thriller, with strong romantic elements, that explores the life of a rich businessman who suffers from anterograde amnesia (short term memory loss) following a violent encounter in which his love interest, model Kalpana, was killed. He tries to avenge the killing with the aid of Polaroid Instant camera photographs and permanent tattoos on his body. The Aamir Khan starrer Ghajini had created waves at the box office by raking in Rs 90 crore worldwide on the first weekend of its release. But much before that, the film had already created waves in the world of marketing by setting new standards for the industry. Ghajini has been marketed as ‘India’s first event film’, one that has the potential to become a successful business venture rather than just the box office success of the movie. Apart from the success of Ghajini, the movie was able to create much hype in the corporate world through its well tuned and finely coordinated marketing campaign pre and post movie release. The movie had released within the country with 1,400 prints. Reliance BIG Pictures had released 213 prints overseas inorder to have maximum revenue in initial weeks of curiosity. To promote a movie various means or modes of communications were used. The marketing or promotions of a movie start right from the day of its first day of shooting to even after the movie was released.
Before 25th December
• Muhurat: The first day of shooting i.e. Muhurat, is done on a day which the film crew
feels is auspicious. On the muhurat itself, many a times many stars are called in that are not going to be featured in the movie. And then at right moment the shooting for the movie begins. Normally only a single scene is only recorded on that day. Media people
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are specially called in to create awareness about the film. The same was also done for Ghajini.
• First Look: Ghajini's marketing started way back from March 20th, 2008 when he came
out on the premier of RACE with his new bald look. It actually gave the perfect sneak peek at the two looks of Aamir in the movie. It was the first time that the entire world saw Aamir dawning the bald look which soon became famous.
• Music release: Just like muhurats, music release is also an
important tool for promoting hindi movies. In hindi movies, music forms an important part of the movie. The music released date for Ghajini was November 22, 2008. The music was recorded at Panchathan Record Inn. The music company with which Ghajini associated itself was T-Series. The music director of the movie was A.R. Rahman which also created a lot of hype, as he is one of the best in the music industry. And finally the lyrics for the various songs were given by Prasoon Joshi. In Bollywood, it is said that, if the music of the movie is a hit with the audience then the movie is bound to be hit. So releasing the music in a proper manner is important for a movie to be successful.
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Newspapers: In November, this photo shot across almost all leading dailies and Aamir without even showing his face and his 8 packs instantly became the talk of the town. After this the almost every week there was some news about the movie in the newspaper. It would either be about the various promotion strategies being used by Aamir, or the release dates of the music, movie. Even interviews of the cast and crew of the movie started coming in the newspapers.
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• The 8 pack promotion: Cut back to october 2007 and remember SRK and the ho-hallah
around his 6 pack abs. It was only around that time that Aamir silently started working on his own, and just to make it better, he added a pair and made it eight pack abs. The fact that the man now had 8 pack abs and a fantastic body, he decided to show the world how he got it. So to do this he came up with the videos 'Making of Aamir's 8 pack' on all news and entertainment channels. He even went a step ahead and called a press conference to introduce his trainer and explain his diet chart.
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Television appearances: Soon the promos and the trailers of the movie were aired on all the TV channels. With the TV channels filled with Ghajini promos, Aamir went into
overdrive with his interviews, which came in by the day on every news and entertainment channel. He even made some guest appearences on reality shows.
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Promotion at Theaters: Aamir has asked the staff in PVR multiplexes to don the Aamir hair cut in Ghajini. After Ghajini was released, staff at PVR multiplexes were spotted sporting Aamir Khan’s buzz cut. This move also turned out to be as Ambush Marketing, because Shah Rukh Khan’s movie Rab neBana di JodI also released in the same week.
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Co Branding: Ghajini utilized co-branding to its advantage. It collabrated with many different brands for the marketing of the movie. The vairous brand with which it got associated are mentioned below:
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o Tata Sky: Tata Sky started running Ghajini “specials” complete with behind-thescenes stories of the upcoming film. Even Asin was made the brand ambassador of Tata Sky. o Samsung launched special Ghajini edition mobile phones of L700 and M200 models. These phones were launched along with the release of the movie. The special feature about these phones was that they were pre-loaded with Ghajini movie songs, ringtones and wallpapers. o Van Heusen: Van Huesen launched Ghajini's apparels in their stores all across India and is backing it with in-store campaigns and giant posters of Khan dressed in formal attire. Van Heusen also organized a fashion show wherein models along with Aamir sported the Ghajini look. Even Aamir khan himself walked on the ramp for the fashion show. o Tata Indicom: Tata Indicom started with a outbound dialer service with Khan's pre-recorded voice. In this, some users of Tata Indicom would get a call where Aamir Khan would ask questions like ‘Are you Ghajini?’, ‘Do you know where Ghajini?’ and ‘The movie is releasing on 25th December, so be there to find out the truth.’
•
Viral SMS campaign: Viral Smses were sent to many people to promote the movie and create a buzz and curiosity about the movie. People received sms on their mobile which goes “Someone killed Aamir’s girlfriend and he lost his memory. Then he tries to find out the killer. Suspense… Aamir himself is the killer. Now enjoy Ghajini!”
• Digital Promotion: Ghajini is one big thing among hindi movie freaks and the producers
and a digital marketing company for the first time in India had come up with such kind of plan. With few user-involving online promoting tools and websites Ghajini makers had reaped the benefits of web and internet. The trick was to engage official website – www.rememberghajini.com to create maximum visibility for the movie. However in addition to the extraordinary website there were the two
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viral applications cum websites that gripped the user and gave him an experience like the movie, over the Internet. The creators of Ghajini and Hungama took this initiative to attract the online audience to the theatres. Exclusive videos of Aamir Khan had been shot and used for the so called viral application www.findghajini.com. In this application, the user plays the lead role of movie which is played by actor Aamir Khan and tries to find Ghajini through the clues provided. After the user finds a clue, he/ she is given a hint about where one might find the next one. After one finds all the clues, the user needs to dial a phone number on which one can hear Aamir Khan talking to them. In other viral app cum website www.wallofsuspects.com users can upload their own photograph or that of their friends, much like the Aamir Khan’s wall of suspects in the film. Once they have done so, they receive a code which is required to view the entire wall of suspects. The websites & tools are brought via Hungama, an aggregator, developer and publisher of Indian entertainment content. The makers of Ghajini with Hangama are capitalizing the potential of the web along with Hungama to create maximum visibility for the film. • They also launched a collectible small statue based on Aamir Khan’s look in Ghajini, especially the tattoos and eight packs. The makers of Ghajini, Geetha Arts, claim that Aamir Khan’s statue is exquisitely carved and is a premium collectible. • UTV owned Indiagames had also developed five mobile based games on Ghajini which was a huge success.
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•
Paid previews were viewed as another marketing strategy by film makers since they helped in generating a certain amount of buzz around the film. On December 23, 2008, the film had 300 paid previews with the ticket prices ranging between Rs. 100 and Rs. 500.
•
Aamir also kept up the internet marketing of Ghajini, with his blog and the new Ghajini site, which invites journalists to register on the site, upload their photos, and receive personal notes from him.
Final Week controversy In the final week, just two days before the release of the movie a court notice came which stated 'Ghajini Release Stayed'. This created a lot of tension among the masses. Naturally, this became breaking news with minute to minute tracking on the latest updates. But the matter was solved and the movie released on the next day when it was scheduled to release. After 25th December • Aamir turns barber: While many star struck men and boys visited salons to get the perfect 'Ghajini' cut, two lucky fans got their hair buzzed by Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan himself at a market in the capital, New Delhi. 'Quite a lot of people are getting this 'Ghajini' haircut from various places, so I thought I will give the cut to some of my fans myself. I felt very light when I got it done - there was no need to comb my hair after the bath,' said Aamir, who gave hair cut at Bengali Market in central Delhi as part of his promotional activities for 'Ghajini'. Aamir gave the hair cut to Shamshir, a hairstylist, and Shivek, a grade five student in the presence of a huge crowd.
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Television: After the success of the movie, the lead pair of the movie came on TIMES NOW. In an exclusive interview with the Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami actors Aamir Khan and Asin talked about their film Ghajini and the various reasons that they think because of which it was a success. They even answered various questions that were asked by the viewers of the show.
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Asin unveils Salman Khan’s Ghajini paintings: Salman Khan was so impressed by Ghajini that he made paintings of Amir Khan’s Ghajini look and they were unveiled by Asin at Inox multiplex on December 26, 2008. Amir Khan and Salman Khan are known to be good friends and this painting again proved the same.
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Aamir Khan at Radio Mirchi: Aamir Khan has been promoting Ghajini like never before and media shy Aamir Khan has turned into an extremely media friendly Aamir Khan. Ghajini has already set all box office records on fire with its huge success and turning out to be the most successful movie of 2008 and likely to become the highest box office earner in Bollywood history. But this has not stopped Aamir Khan and he is going on promoting Ghajini in every measure he can even after the movie’s release and subsequent huge success. He turned out at Radio Mirchi on December 29, 2008 which is one of the most popular FM radio stations in India and answered to callers there.
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Aamir and Asin on Cine Blitz cover: Aamir Khan and Asin Thottumkal appeared on the cover of Cine Blitz movie magazine in that month. The couple were looking great in the magazine cover. Aamir and Asin seem to be appearing in everything related to Bollywood after the huge success of Ghajini.
Success Parties: Like almost all the movies, even Ghajini had its success party. But the only major difference being that Ghajini celebrated its success parties on different occasions. 1. Ghajini success party photos
Ghajini had been a huge success at the box office and the crew of Ghajini gave a party to celebrate the success of the movie on 31st December. Aamir Khan cut the cake at the party while the Asin, Jiah and the director A R Murugadoss were also present. 2. Ghajini success party on crossing Rs. 200 crores
Ghajini celebrated its second success party after crossing Rs. 200 crores worldwide gross. Aamir Khan came to the success party for a day though he was busy in the shooting of his next movie Rajkumar Hirani’s 3 Idiots. 3 Idiots would be a comedy and Aamir would be playing a college student in this movie directed by Hirani of Munnabhai fame. On the occassion, Ghajini heroines Asin Thottumkal and Jiah Khan were also present. The movie’s villain Pradeep Rawat who played the character of Ghajini in the movie and the director A R Murugadoss were also present at the party.
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Ghajini after making 200 crores, the producer of the movie Madhu Mantena decided to show his gratitude to Aamir by presenting him a golden statue of Aamir. This statue shows Aamir’s Ghajini look and is made of solid gold. The statue might have cost Madhu about 70 - 80 lakhs though he was not ready to tell the amount spent in the statue. The statue was made similar to the Oscar award statue and also had Aamir’s eight pack Ghajini abs in it. The director A R Murugadoss was also gifted a statue by the producer though it was not of pure gold like Aamir’s.
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Marketing Outcome According to a multiplex official, "The number of paid previews is so large that it is as good as a release. Earlier, we used to have three shows a day when a film released, now each cinema is having three paid previews a day prior to the release!" Earlier Hindi films like “Dostana and Singh is King” had paid previews and collected Rs. 7.5 million and Rs. 5 million respectively. The promotional strategies adopted by the film makers resulted in generating such hype that the film showed whopping results. In contrast to the estimates made by experts that Rs. 10 million would be collected from the paid previews, the film grossed Rs. 70 million from December 23, 2008 to December 24, 2008. The collections, as of 31st December, were Rs 140 crores, the money Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi earned in 3 weeks, Ghajini took a week to earn." Thus showing the success of the movie. Ghajini’s tie up with an apparel brand, toy stores, cinema halls and a mobile phone company and more than anything Aamir not just giving the occasional interview leading up to the release, he seemed to have taken the marketing of the film as seriously as his role in the film. The first phase of Ghajini’s marketing life cycle was quite active and promising & the second phase was made with a budget of around 50 Crore and with marketing expenses of about 14 Crore. Aamir’s “buzz cut” attracted 18 hours of television coverage, translating into publicity worth Rs 129.6 lakhs. Further TV news channels showed 31 hours of coverage translating into Rs. 423 lakhs worth of publicity. Aamir Khan, who was present at the trial run of the movie at a preview theatre in Mumbai Wednesday, reportedly said that “Ghajini” has created a record by becoming the first Bollywood movie in recent times for which the tickets had been sold in advance for all five days of the opening week across the country.
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According to trade reports, in view of the unprecedented audience expectation for the film, the multiplexes were asking the distributors to increase the number of prints,which clearly depicts the impact of marketing mania created on the audience. End Result The success of the film was widely attributed to the aggressive promotional strategies adopted by the film makers in conjunction with the lead actor of the film, Aamir Khan, who played a vital role in the promotion of the film. Also what’s noteworthy is the fact that Internet Marketing for Ghajini has been a very significant chunk of the overall marketing strategy. “Hungama” is the brain behind the Internet Marketing for Ghajini. There is nothing in terms of marketing initiatives that have not been covered for Ghajini, be it the teaser trailers, photos of his new looks, and, of course, internet marketing. According to “Box Office Mojo” Ghajini's box-office totals were about Rs.280 crores ($54,316,564 USD) worldwide as of 29th of January 2009 with a total run of 37 days/ 5.3 weeks, making it Bollywood's highest grossing movie of all time. Thus given the effort that went into promoting Ghajini with the innovative marketing strategies that it adopted, the results are there for all to see which has set a new trend & also will act as a benchmark for many upcoming productions to keep up with it.
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